Moosaਮੂਸਾ

Where is Moosa?

Moosa sits in the south-western Malwa, about 13 kilometres from Mansa town — the headquarters of the district that shares its name. It is a village of Mansa tehsil and block, and its gram panchayat, which covers this one village, answers to the Mansa panchayat samiti. The 2011 Census counted 3,742 people here in 708 households, living on about 1,140 hectares of flat, fully irrigated farmland. Canals water most of it; tube wells water the rest. Wheat in winter, paddy in summer, cotton in between — the classic cropping rhythm of the cotton belt. Literacy stood at about 53 per cent in 2011, and roughly a third of the population belonged to the Scheduled Castes. The village has a sub-post office, a primary health sub-centre, government and private schools up to the middle level, and private bus services; there is no railway station within 10 kilometres, and Mansa town, 12 to 13 kilometres away, is the nearest market town.

History

Moosa’s history is the quiet kind. It grew as a farming settlement of the Malwa’s cotton belt — a Jat Sikh village of brick lanes and joint families, its fields worked generation after generation. The census returns tell its modern story in numbers: 3,294 people in 2001, 3,742 in 2011, steady and unspectacular growth. The panchayat runs local affairs, and in December 2018 the village elected Charan Kaur as its sarpanch. Nothing in those facts suggested that within a few years the village’s name would be known on every continent. That change had a single cause, and he was born here.

The boy who named himself for the village

Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu was born in Moosa on 11 June 1993, into a Jat Sikh farming family — his father Balkaur Singh, his mother Charan Kaur. He studied electrical engineering at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College in Ludhiana, graduated in 2016, and moved to Brampton, Ontario, as an international student. Music, which he had loved since childhood, became his profession there: he wrote songs for other artists before stepping forward as a singer himself. His breakthrough came in 2017 with “So High”. His stage name — Sidhu Moose Wala, “Sidhu from Moosa” — was a tribute to his home village. The debut album PBX 1 followed in 2018 and charted on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart; Moosetape (2021) became the first Indian album to cross a billion streams on Spotify. In 2020 The Guardian named him among 50 up-and-coming artists, and he became the first Indian singer to perform at London’s Wireless Festival. Through it all he kept living in Moosa, in the family home, and fans made the village a regular stop. In December 2018 he campaigned for his mother in the sarpanch election, which she won. In December 2021 he joined the Indian National Congress and contested the Mansa assembly seat in the 2022 Punjab election; he lost to the Aam Aadmi Party’s Vijay Singla.

29 May 2022

On the evening of 29 May 2022, Moose Wala left his home in his black Mahindra Thar, driving toward his aunt’s house in Barnala with his cousin and a neighbour. Near Jawaharke village, two cars blocked the SUV and the shooters opened fire — about thirty rounds, which also injured the two men travelling with him. His father rushed him to the civil hospital in Mansa, where he was declared dead. He was 28. He was cremated on 31 May on his own farmland at Moosa. The killing came a day after the Punjab government scaled back the security cover of 424 people, Moose Wala among them, leaving him with two commandos instead of four — a decision that drew sharp criticism. Canada-based gangster Goldy Brar, a close associate of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, claimed responsibility for the killing; police said it was the outcome of inter-gang rivalry, carried out to avenge the murder of Akali leader Vicky Middukhera. The Punjab Police charge sheet named Brar, Bishnoi and others, and a special investigation team continues to probe the case.

The memorial

Moosa buried its son and then built him a shrine. Within fifty days of the killing, a 6.5-foot statue of the singer stood in the fields where he had been cremated. His parents, Balkaur Singh and Charan Kaur, unveiled it in July 2022; the sculptor Iqbal Gill of Manuke had taken twenty-five days to shape the metallic-fibre figure, which was carried to the site on Moose Wala’s own 5911 tractor. A fan had already placed a bust of the singer at the spot a month after the death; seeing the daily crowds it drew, the family built a shed over it and put up a sign asking visitors to plant a sapling in his memory. Manjit Singh of Ghal Kalan prepared another sculpture of the singer with the family’s approval. The memorial — the statue, the singer’s vehicles, the family haveli nearby — now draws visitors every day, from Punjab and from the diaspora. On 29 May 2023, his first death anniversary, hundreds gathered at Jawahar Ke for prayers at the cremation site.

Getting there

Moosa lies about 13 kilometres from Mansa town along the district roads, and the nearest state highway runs within 5 kilometres. Private buses serve the village; the nearest public bus services are 5 to 10 kilometres away. There is no railway station within 10 kilometres — Mansa town is the nearest rail link. Most visitors arrive by road from Mansa. The memorial stands in the family’s fields at the village edge — ask anyone in Moosa and they will point the way.

Today

Moosa today lives a double life. The wheat-paddy-cotton cycle turns as it always has, and the panchayat’s business goes on — but a steady stream of visitors keeps the memory of 29 May 2022 present. The family home still stands in the village. Moose Wala’s music has outlived him: the posthumous single “SYL” was released in June 2022; billboards in New York’s Times Square played his songs on what would have been his 29th birthday; Drake played his tracks on his radio show; the city of Brampton commissioned a mural in his honour; and British rapper Tion Wayne’s 2023 tribute “Healing” features his father, his 5911 tractor and the village of Moosa itself. For the village, the fame is both pride and weight: the family welcomes the fans while asking for its privacy, and the saplings visitors plant at the memorial keep growing.